


Something Entirely Unexpected

by laurus_nobilis



Category: Brave Police J-Decker, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Community: intoabar, Crossover, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 16:41:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3903412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurus_nobilis/pseuds/laurus_nobilis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurumi meets a not so harmless little old lady, an alien that doesn't really explain anything, and a(nother) robot dog.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Entirely Unexpected

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Into A Bar Spring 2015 round: "Romana II goes into a bar and meets... Kurumi Tomonaga".

Kurumi wasn't even surprised. Given her family's track record, random kidnappings were almost a fact of life. That wasn't to say that she hadn't been scared when an unknown robot simply picked her up in its arms when she was walking back from school. It was very strange, too, as if it was built from a bunch of spare parts that didn't quite match each other. Even though it was human sized and clearly not sentient, it was still far too strong for her to escape from its grip, and she had no idea of who had sent it to get her or what they planned to do. Even though she kicked and screamed all the way through, it had managed to take her through the back door of a shady-looking bar, empty except for a little old lady. For a moment, she'd almost thought the robot had been stupid enough to get into the wrong building, but then the woman ordered it to put her down - and then ordered Kurumi herself to just sit and wait, without any further explanations.

The old lady had locked the back door and the robot was now standing right next to the main entrance. The windows were very small, and seemed to also be locked, anyway. Kurumi had no choice but to do as told and sit on one of the tall stools. She had no obvious way to run away on her own, but at least she was almost certain that she wasn't going to get hurt. So, by now, what little fear was left in her had turned into plain old annoyance.

"You can't keep me here. They're going to find me really soon," she said, trying to look more defiant than she felt. "You guys picked me up right from the street. Everyone saw that! I'm sure a lot of people told the police by now."

"I know, dear. That was the plan," replied the woman. "It would have worked with any random person, I think. That's what I was originally going to do. But then, by chance, I saw you going to school so close to my bar! It was a stroke of luck. A close friend of the Brave Police... no, they're not going to send any random officer for this. Who knows, maybe your ninja friend will show up. I hope he does. He's pretty."

"What do you want with Shadowmaru? If you hurt him, I'll--"

"It doesn't have to be him _specifically_. But it'd be nice, with all those extra modifications and skills he has. And really, shouldn't you know what I want?" The old lady frowned at her. "Don't you recognize me?"

"Umm..." Kurumi tried to calm down enough to focus on her captor. She really didn't look familiar, but then again, Yuuta was the one who'd actually seen most criminals they had dealt with, not her. "Nnnno. Should I?"

"Of course you should! I'm _the Mechanic_! Engineer by day, bartender by night, master criminal all the time!" Oddly enough, she seemed to deflate after her enthusiastic little speech. "You really haven't heard about me at all?"

"... I really haven't, no."

"Hmpf. Well, you _are_ young. But I used to be quite famous, I'll have you know. Stealing people's robots, building my own improved ones with their parts... ah, it was a good life. At least until a few years ago. Robots got better as a whole, much harder to steal, and I had to stick to bartending for a while. Only this trashcan here is left," she sighed, nodding at her robot. "The Brave Police, though - they _inspired_ me again. Almost make me feel like I'm regaining my youth!"

"Well, you can't hurt them!" interrupted Kurumi. She was back to being worried, now, though she tried not to let it show. "You said it yourself, all you have now is that ugly old thing. There's no way it can even scratch one of my friends."

"Ah, but it doesn't have to," the Mechanic said with a satisfied grin."I've rigged the alarm system in this building to shoot EMPs instead. As soon as one of them touches it at all, or even if they try to shoot the doors open or anything like that, their systems will turn off. Long enough to farm for spare parts, that's for sure."

Before Kurumi could react, she could hear police sirens approaching, as if on cue. So she changed her plan of action from her previous idea of yelling pointlessly at her captor, to running towards the windows and yelling with a very clear purpose. Hopefully she could be heard from outside.

"Guys! Stop! Don't get close to it!"

The robot grabbed her and stopped her from getting closer to the wall, but Kurumi didn't stop shouting. The sirens had stopped, and that couldn't be a good sign, because if they had changed into their robot forms that meant they were about to try to open the doors or at least get closer and then--

\--then something entirely unexpected happened instead. There was an odd sizzling sound, and all of a sudden the door's lock started to smoke. So did a few other places that Kurumi couldn't quite see from where she was being held, but she guessed they were the locations where the Mechanic had placed her EMP generators. The door opened without any resistance and a blonde woman came in, followed by a small robot dog.

"Well, that's a rude way to treat a young lady," she said, in a perfectly calm voice. "K-9, would you help her, please?"

"Of course, Mistress," the dog replied.

His voice sound tinny, far more similar to a talking appliance than to Kurumi's robot friends, but he did seem to have a personality. Still, she didn't have much time to wonder about that at the moment. He pointed a laser beam at the robot holding her. It immediately went limp, and Kurumi had to balance herself quickly to avoid falling on her backside. She managed it, however, and immediately moved away from the robot and closer to the strange woman. Just in case.

"Thanks," she said. "Er. Who are you?"

"You can call me Romana," said the newcomer. "Now, where is that so-called 'Mechanic' hiding?"

Only then, Kurumi noticed that the old lady had disappeared in the confusion. There weren't many places she could be, given the small size of the room, unless it had some secret passage that she didn't know about. The reality turned out to be far more boring.

"I'm right here!" the Mechanic said. She had been just crouching behind the bar - or, perhaps, looking for the weapon that she was now pointing at them. "And don't try anything funny. I have an EMP blaster pointed at your dog."

"And I," said Romana, "have a screwdriver. So that makes us even."

Kurumi gave her an exasperated look. She probably shouldn't be rude to her rescuer, but she couldn't help it.

"A screwdriver? Really?"

"Really. How do you think I disabled all those other EMPs?"

"That's nonsense!" shouted the Mechanic. "I'm going to get your robot's pretty laser nose, and there's nothing you can do to stop me--"

She hadn't even finished speaking when Romana pointed a strange gadget at her blaster, which immediately started to smoke, and she had to drop it.

"What...?"

"I warned you," said Romana sweetly. The Mechanic glared at her.

"That's not a screwdriver!"

"It's a _sonic_ screwdriver. Now, are you going to come out peacefully? Because the Brave Police did arrive, you see, and you're out of EMPs."

"Are you _sure_?" Kurumi interrupted. "They're my friends. If they get hurt..."

Romana, fortunately, didn't seem to mind. She smiled at the girl in reassurance.

"I'm sure. I've checked," she said, before turning to look at the Mechanic again. "So, what will it be?"

The old lady's answer was simply to pick up the broken EMP blaster and throw it at their heads. K-9's laser destroyed it mid-air, and Romana sighed.

"They never choose to come peacefully. K-9, will you be a dear?"

Without even wasting time by replying, he shot the Mechanic before she could react. Kurumi gasped in shock.

"I have only stunned her," said K-9, turning around to face her. "It will give us time."

"Time for what?" she asked, more and more confused by the moment. This whole situation was starting to move too quickly to process everything. She was glad to find out that the old woman wasn't dead, at least. Even though she was a criminal, just shooting her would have been far too ruthless. It was a relief to see that Romana and her dog weren't that kind of people.

"For the Brave Police to arrive, of course," explained Romana.

"Eh? But you said--"

"Oh, I was just bluffing. The sirens were a recording."

"I don't understand," Kurumi said. "They would never take this long to come here. What happened?"

"What happened is that we were lucky enough to catch up with them before they arrived. I had already noticed the EMP network, you see, so I had to go and warn them about it. But it took a lot of effort to convince them to stay away. Stubborn, they are. Quite ready to run head first into trouble."

"Should I give them the all clear, Mistress?" asked K-9. Romana agreed, and he immediately proceeded to radio them. Kurumi recognized Deckerd's quite relieved voice over the communicator. He said they'd be there as soon as possible.

"They'll still be a while. I told them to leave the surrounding area to be sure they'd be safe, so they aren't very near," said Romana. "How about we look for some snacks while we wait?"

A few minutes later, they were both sitting at the bar and munching on some pickles, while K-9 stood guard next to the stunned old lady just in case she woke up sooner than expected. Now that Kurumi knew everything would be okay, she was started to get curious.

"So, who are you, really?" she asked.

"Oh, just a traveler," Romana said. That was vague enough to be suspicious, and Kurumi wasn't about to fall for it.

"You mean like an alien?"

"You jumped to that conclusion rather quickly, don't you think?"

Kurumi shrugged.

"My sister's boyfriend was an alien once."

Romana laughed, but it was so good-natured that Kurumi didn't mind.

"Fair enough," she replied. "And you're right, I'm not from this planet. I'm not even from this universe. When I heard there was someone calling themselves 'the Mechanic' in this city... well, I have to admit, I wondered if it might be another Time Lord. It sounds like the kind of names we use."

"So... she's an alien too?"

"I'm afraid not. She's a very clever human, but this certainly is no Time Lord technology." For a moment there, Romana sounded almost subdued, but she immediately perked up. "Though that turned out to work in our favor, didn't it? The good guys win."

"That's right!" Then Kurumi's own expression softened, too. "And... thank you, really. Both of you. For rescuing me, and for saving my friends."

Whatever Romana or K-9 might have answered was drowned by the really loud, really high-pitched _Kurumi-neesaaaaan!_ as Yuuta ran into the bar. She barely had time to jump down from her stool before he tackled her into a tight hug.

"Yuuta, it's okay. I'm okay. Promise," she said, ruffling his hair. He sniffed a couple of times and relaxed his grip, but didn't let go.

"We were all so worried!" he said. "And Deckerd and Shadowmaru still wanted to come and get you anyway! And then Dumpson said if they didn't stop then they'd have to form Super Build Tiger to punch them in the face and--"

" _Yuuta_. It's really all right now. And you should be focusing on arresting this Mechanic person before she can cause more trouble, don't you think?"

"... right." He finally stepped away, wiped his tears with one of his sleeves, and seemed to notice Romana for the first time. He gave her a polite bow. "Thank you for helping my sister, miss."

"Don't mention it," she said. "Now go, you two. K-9 and I will guard her until she wakes up. You should go make sure your own robot dog stops worrying."

"He's a wolf," Kurumi and Yuuta said at the same time. But she had a good point. Yuuta ran outside right away, eager to let everyone know that things had turned out all right.

Kurumi, on the other hand, turned around towards Romana one last time.

"You're not going to just disappear, are you?"

"Of course not. I just promised you I'd watch your suspect," she answered. Then she grinned. "But maybe right after that."

"How about right after dinner?"

"That is a reasonable request, Mistress. We are in no hurry."

"Well," Romana said, "if K-9 insists."


End file.
